Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Rapid increases in tree growth found in US

03/17/2010 - 23:00

Rapid increases in tree growth in the US, slower tree growth in the tropics, new ideas about biodiversity, new methods for monitoring forest carbon stocks: These are among the mid-term results from the HSBC Climate Partnership.

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Sticky environmental problem with carpet tiles solved

03/17/2010 - 23:00

A new adhesive for use in carpet tiles could help dramatically reduce their impact on the environment. The powerful adhesives currently used to bind the layers of carpet tiles together make it challenging to recycle them. In Europe, around 70 million kilograms of carpet tile waste is incinerated or sent to landfill sites every year.

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Pesticide chlorpyrifos linked to childhood developmental delays

03/17/2010 - 23:00

Exposure to the pesticide chlorpyrifos -- which is banned for use in US households but is still widely used throughout the agricultural industry -- is associated with early childhood developmental delays.

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Ivory enforcement failures identified in parts of Africa, Asia

03/17/2010 - 22:00

Urgent law enforcement action by governments in Central and West Africa and Southeast Asia is crucial to addressing the illicit ivory trade, according to a new analysis of elephant trade data. Detailed regional summaries of the data held in the Elephant Trade Information System, the world's largest database on ivory seizures, highlight the failure of law enforcement in key elephant range states.

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Surprise Shrimp Under Antarctic Ice

03/17/2010 - 19:00

At a depth of 600 feet beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet, a small shrimp-like creature managed to brighten up an otherwise gray polar day.

In the healthy rat, prolonged exposure to carbon monoxide (CO) under conditions that mimic urban pollution leads to changes to cardiac morphology and function. Compensatory mechanisms develop in these animals to sustain normal cardiac activity, but they become more vulnerable to heart disease. The results provide cellular proof in the rat of a direct effect of urban pollution on cardiac function. Studies are ongoing to verify these findings in humans.

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Jaws -- 4 million BC: How an extinct shark attacked its prey

03/17/2010 - 13:00

Palaeontologists have discovered evidence of how an extinct shark attacked its prey, reconstructing a killing that took place 4 million years ago.

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Frogs, foam and fuel: Solar energy converted to sugars

03/17/2010 - 10:00

In natural photosynthesis, plants take in solar energy and carbon dioxide and then convert it to oxygen and sugars. The oxygen is released to the air and the sugars are dispersed throughout the plant -- like that sweet corn we look for in the summer. Unfortunately, the allocation of light energy into products we use is not as efficient as we would like. Now engineering researchers are doing something about that.

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First parasitic nematodes reported in biofuel crops

03/16/2010 - 23:00

Researchers in Illinois have discovered widespread occurrence of plant-parasitic nematodes in the first reported nematode survey of Miscanthus and switchgrass plants used for biofuels.

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High levels of mercury found in Cataraqui River, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

03/16/2010 - 23:00

The Inner Harbour on the Cataraqui River in Kingston, Ont., has mercury levels in sediment more than two times the Canadian government's most severe effect limits, according to a new study.